We Were Children Once
by Miiko Ashida
Summary: Their field was a place where they could just talk. There, they could be themselves, always. Genma's adivce never led Hayate astray, and Hayate's love made sure Genma never forgot just what heartbreak was. And it all came back to their field. [GenHaya]
1. Part I

**We Were Children Once**

PartI

* * *

Author's Notes: I'm having lots of fun with this one. I can _totally_ see Genma as a farm kid, you know? After all, not all the ninjas can come from ninja families. There have to be at least a few who just started with a dream and the tuition for the Academy -- and one of them became a Tokubetsu Jounin. Imagine that. Anyway, it's really entertaining to draw out the dynamic between them as kids, since we know nothing about how well they knew each other.

* * *

The two boys lay side by side in their field, dragonflies humming by overhead. 

"It's their mating season, look," Hayate pointed out in his soft, raspy little voice. Sure enough, Genma saw a pair of insects buzz past, intertwined at the end.

"Yeah. Creepy."

With a lazy minimum of motion, he raised the stick in his hand and swiped at the passing pair. His companion gently snatched the stick from him. "Don't do that."

"What? It don't bother 'em none."

"It _doesn't_ bother them _any_." One of Hayate's noble crusades in life was to repair the battered grammar his farm-reared friend used. But only sometimes.

"Sure." Genma flicked the end of his nose contemplatively, grinding down the end of a piece of wheat between his teeth. The sun glinted in his eyes, and he raised a hand to blot it out. Except for a few stealthy rays that crept around his fingers and fanned the black outline of his hand, he was mostly successful.

Between pouted lips, Hayate sighed. "Father took me to meet that girl I told you about last week."

Genma glanced over, just his eyes moving. "Oh, yeah?"

"Mm-hm. Yugao-chan."

"She cute?"

"I guess so." Hayate furrowed his brow. "Anyway, I don't know if I want to get married yet. I haven't even graduated from the Academy."

"The Academy? Ha!" barked Genma. "You ain't even turned _ten_," he reminded scornfully. He himself was a much-elevated eleven-and-a-half.

"Anyway...the point is, I think it's a little weird that I'm engaged to someone I just met." He rolled over onto his side, watching Genma's dirt-smudged face settle back into the quiet of the moment. "I'd rather just lie out in this field all day with you, just like this. Just talking. It's...nice. You know?"

The unwavering solemnity in his tiny little kitten-voice made Genma lapse into a silence of half-amusement, half-consideration. "Yeah, I know."

"I'm not even sure I want to be a ninja. It's just that my father and mother are, so I am, too."

"See, that's your problem." Languidly, Genma rolled over until he, too, faced his friend straight on. "Me, I ain't gonna be like my old man and just work the land all day. I wanna be a ninja, so I'm gonna. All he's got is dust and a bad back. I see it, and I don't want none of it, so I'm goin' to the Academy." He spit out the wheat stem, mutilated and wet. It landed in the grassby Hayate, whoedged discreetly away from it. "Point is, Hayate, do what _you_ want. Not what your folks want. Get it?"

Hayate flinched back as Genma thrust out a hand to ruffle his hair. "I don't _not_ want to be a ninja. I'm just not _sure_."

"Well, stick with it. 'Cause everyone else in our class _hates_ me."

"Sure," agreed Hayate, smiling slightly.


	2. Interlude I

Interlude I

* * *

Three years later, Genma was fourteen and skilled with senbon, and Hayate was a ninja and still engaged to Yugao. 

They still met up in their field after missions, still just sat and talked for hours.

Genma still couldn't speak properly and Hayate still corrected him.

Both of them still didn't mind.

-

A year after that, they still used the field, but now they trained, and most of their talk was about the fact that next year they'd be eligible for ANBU.

Genma still couldn't straighten out his grammar.

Hayate had given up on correcting him.

Sometimes Hayate didn't make it to the field; he was undergoing courting ceremonies with Yugao.

Those days, Genma sat and chewed wheat and wondered why his much-bigger hand still couldn't completely block out the sun. He went inside and stayed up all night, full of things he'd wanted to say that bounced around inside of him and were gone by the next afternoon.

But it was still _their_ field.


	3. Part II

**We Were Children Once**

Part II

* * *

"Hey, Genma-kun!" Between words, Hayate took great, gasping breaths. He dropped his bike into a patch of the seemingly never-ending sea of wheat. This time of year, it was grown out to full-length, and even a boy his size could get lost in it if he didn't use the old harvesters' paths. "Have you ever been told you live out in the middle of _nowhere_?"

"Reckon so," came the answer, and from its sound, Hayate approximated where his friend was. He leapt over the heads of wheat, and landed on something soft that went 'Oof!' "_Hell_, Hayate! That hurt!"

"Sorry." The black-haired youth smiled apologetically and slid off Genma's stomach onto the ground, where he lay down. Just then, the relatively-clean, brightly-colored clothes Genma had on (that weren't covered by his usual overalls) settled in on his perception. "You look like you might have looked nice, earlier."

"I did."

"Why's that?"

"ANBU exams, dummy. Remember?"

"Ohh!" Hayate's face fell.

"It's okay. You had a mission, I know. You told me last week."

Embarrassment flared color into Hayate's cheeks and ears. "It's not that. I...well, I got back early. I was really tired, and I had to go to the hospital, and I sort of...I'm so sorry, Genma, I forgot!" Tears pricked his eyes, and he wiped them away with one black sleeve.

"Aw, hey, Hayate, don't cry. I'm glad you wasn't there – woulda been embarrassed. I did real bad."

"Really _badly_," corrected Hayate with a cracked giggle.

"Sure. Yeah. I did really badly."

"You didn't make it?"

"_I_ knew I didn't have a prayer. How's a guy _supposed_ to do if half his luck's somewhere else?" He gently prodded Hayate with his finger, then tickled him, and then they were rolling together in the wheat, elbows and knees and fists all sort of blurring together until they ran right into Hayate's bike, and stopped.

"We'll do it together next year, Genma-kun. I promise."

Genma grinned down into Hayate's slightly-flushed face. Too much exertion did things to his lungs and circulation, so Genma was careful not to overdo it when they horsed around. He just wished he wouldn't remember things like that during such moments. "You swear?"

"I swear."

Genma slipped out a kunai from behind his back and nicked his palm, then handed it to Hayate, who did the same. They clasped hands, and Genma pulled Hayate up, still sort of squatting on his legs. "ANBU's as good as ours."

"Yeah."


	4. Interlude II

Interlude II

* * *

They didn't make it into ANBU the next year, or the year after that. 

Nothing came of Hayate's courting ceremonies; Yugao's father wanted her to wait to be married until after she was off the ANBU squad. He also didn't want her to marry Hayate unless he was _on_ it.

Genma smiled at all the pretty girls in town, and they usually smiled back, but nothing lasted more than a couple dates.

In their field, the tracks grew over, and an old bicycle fell to rust.

But even this was still theirs, on the days when they remembered to be friends instead of just teammates.


End file.
